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Google's VP of design rips into Windows 10 on Twitter
Shortly after recording his first podcast, Google's vice president of design Matias Duarte has publicly slammed Microsoft and Windows 10 on Twitter. After the latest episode of Joshua Topolsky's Tomorrow went live, Duarte tweeted that he had tried the Surface Pro 4 with Windows 10 -- and that in his opinion, it felt like "XP with a flat design skin." Needless to say, this triggered quite a response from the Twittersphere, and Duarte quickly followed up with: "Windows 10? More like Windows 10 years ago!" The tweets were partly sent in jest, as he later described them as "overly clever tweetbait." However, Google's design lead clearly has some issues with the way Microsoft's desktop OS has evolved. Specifically, Duarte claims he has "no beef" with how Windows 10 looks, and is instead disappointed with how it works. As far as he's concerned, the functionality is similar to the now ancient Windows XP: "I understand that's a feature for many," he later tweeted. "Not for me!"
Google confirms Android Wear will support custom watch faces
Since its beginnings, the Android platform has been known for being heavily customizable. As such, it's not exactly a surprise to hear Google say its new smartwatch ecosystem, Android Wear, is due to support watch faces from third-party developers. However, having actual confirmation makes for perfect peace of mind. In a Google+ post, Wear's Senior Developer Advocate, Wayne Piekarski, affirmed this would be the case, stating that the team is already working on a custom watch face API. "Customization has helped Android thrive, and the same will be true for Android Wear," he wrote. The incoming API will make it "as simple as possible" for devs to make all-around great watch faces, ones which can look good, not drain a battery and blend well with the watches card-based UI. Piekarski said "some" of these things won't be available until later this year, but that they are, without a doubt, on their way. So, don't worry, soon enough you'll have better (and official) choices to deck out that smart tick-tock wearable of yours.
Android Ice Cream Sandwich adds Face Unlock feature
There's no shortage of new features in Ice Cream Sandwich, but one sure to attract a lot of attention is Face Unlock. That, as you can probably surmise, lets you unlock your phone through facial recognition instead of a password -- hardly a new idea, but a first for Google. Unfortunately, the demo didn't go quite as planned during the keynote -- locking out Google's Matias Duarte -- but we'll be sure to give it a go ourselves and report back.
Exclusive interview: Google's Matias Duarte talks Honeycomb, tablets, and the future of Android
We're not going to lie -- we're pretty excited to bring this to you guys. Here at CES 2011 we had a chance to sit down with Matias Duarte, the man behind webOS (as well as the Sidekick and Helio UIs), who's now heading up Google's user experience for Android. Matias is currently driving the interface and design for Android 3.0 (AKA Honeycomb), and it's clear that he's bringing his big, bold ideas to the Android platform. This is the first video interview Matias has done since leaving Palm, and we pressed the man on his involvement in Gingerbread and Honeycomb, what had to be torn down in Android, how desktop OSs can inform mobile devices, and much, much more. Don't just take our word for it -- follow along after the break and watch the full interview!
Confirmed: Palm's Matias Duarte joins Google as User Experience Director for Android
We'd heard rumors this morning that webOS design guru Matias Duarte had left Palm for Google, but now we've got it straight from Mountain View: Mr. Duarte is the new User Experience Director for Android. If you'll remember, Matias previously worked on Sidekick with Android head Andy Rubin, so it's a reunion of sorts for these two -- we're pretty excited to see where they take Android in the future. As for Palm, well, we're sure HP has plenty of talented designers waiting to lead webOS into the wild world of tablets, netbooks and, uh, printers, so we'll see what happens there -- things could get crazy on both sides of this transition.
webOS design mastermind Matias Duarte leaves Palm... and could be headed to Google
According to a report filed over at All Things D, Matias Duarte -- the man considered to be the driving force behind the user interface of webOS -- has left Palm, and may very well be headed to Google. Duarte held the title of Senior Director of Human Interface and User Experience, and before working his magic at Palm, was one of the hands that touched the Sidekick and Helio UIs. Although Palm has confirmed his departure from the company, they aren't giving up the goods on where he's headed next, though John Paczkowski over at D says "multiple sources" indicate he's on his way to Google, presumably to work on Android. While Matias was unquestionably a prime mover at Palm, we had heard rumblings that his rigid attitude toward design and control-freak nature sometimes caused conflict amongst the team. Of course, you don't crank out something as groundbreaking as webOS without some hard boundaries. The news that he's headed to Google could signal a major shift for Android towards dealing with the myriad UI issues the mobile OS has, particularly a lack of cohesion in the stock builds -- something HTC has gone to great lengths to shore up with Sense. Update: And it's confirmed. Matias will be joining Sidekick pal Andy Rubin over at Google as Android's User Experience Director. Watch out HTC... and everyone else for that matter.
Matias Duarte, designer behind Sidekick and Helio, now developing Palm's next-gen UI
So we heard from a very reliable source that mobile user interface guru Matias Duarte -- who you may know as the man behind the Sidekick and Helio UI / user experiences -- actually left Helio late last year to join up with Palm. Although no announcement was made, we hear he and his gang of designers jumped ship (well before Helio completely flooded) to take on the monumental task of designing the UI for Palm's next-gen mobile OS (aka "Palm OS 2.0 or II"). His resume online now lists him as "Senior Director, Human Interface and User Experience" doing "Something new..." since September 2007; we got in touch with Palm, who confirmed that he's now under the company's employ.Of course, expectations should be pretty high -- Palm's only been promising this supposedly game-changing OS since around 2004, and the company's reputation and pedigree is (or at least it used to be) in groundbreaking mobile UI design. But this news also kind of makes us wonder: if they didn't have a killer UI and user experience team already in place and long-since working their asses off by late 2007, exactly how far along are they on this thing, anyway?
